2 Mazurkas, Op.12 no.1 & 2

Description

The mazurka as a stylised self-standing work was a highly popular genre in Polish music of the nineteenth century, particularly from the thirties onwards. It was cultivated by nearly all Polish composers. Mazurkas were most often written for piano or – more rarely – for violin and piano.

Wieniawski composed nine mazurkas, publishing seven of them (Opp. 3, 12, 19 and two without opus number); the two unpublished works are lost. The mazurkas are among his early works, dating from the first half of the 1850s, with the exception of the Mazurkas, Op. 19, from 1860. The 2 Mazurkas, Op. 12, titled La Champêtre [Pastoral] and Chanson polonaise, were composed in 1853,1 when Wieniawski was eighteen years old.